Reality to Earth - Rule 40 prohibits an athlete from partaking in any promotions during the course of the Olympic Games . . . That's The Olympic Games, which is probably the largest promotional event anywhere on the planet.
Down in the pool, an American man-child who just happens to swim like Flipper and has taken home the most medals ever . . .
Read that again. Most. Medals. EVER.
There's a rumbling somewhere below the surface that in his off time during the Olympic games, Michael Phelps took part in a Louis Vuitton advertising campaign, having photos taken for a promotion to be released after the Olympics . . .
I don't mean to be picky, but read THAT again. To be released. AFTER. The Olympics.
And thanks to the fact someone LEAKED the photos during the game, UNOFFICIALLY, there's word they want to take back the medals which make Phelps the top Olympic gold-miner of all time owing to RULE 40, which is a NEW rule to help prevent anyone who hasn't bought in as an official sponsor to get a taste of the billions of dollars being passed around the table. (Is it serve from the right, pick up from the left? I'm always getting confused.)
Somewhere in between the dreams of Baron Pierre de Coubertin in creating an Olympic committee for the modern amateur games and today, more than a few cogs have been slipped in the administration of this event. It is rife with questionable bidding wars for sites, more promotional product tie-ins than one could reasonably shake a stick at, and professional athletes of every form finding a place to ply their individual trades.
Tennis, anyone? That's just an example, but check the starting line-up at the US Open and match it against the opening seedings for the Olympics competition. No one seemed to mind the star power there, did they?
It's always the athlete whose gone that extra mile in training to do his or her best who'll have someone throw the flag (or red card) in their face. Now the person, clean of any other possible infractions, they've practically anointed the best of the best for his work IN THE POOL, is possibly going to get his hand slapped for something which happened OUT OF THE POOL.
Once upon a time readers, there was a track and field athlete who was considered the greatest of his day. He won the decathlon and pentathlon in the same games, but because he played Carolina League Baseball for a pittance for a few summers, he was stripped of any medals and statuary he'd been given. This was in 1912, and the athlete was Jim Thorpe, who, as time passed, became one of the first members of an organization originally known as the APFA, which is now known as the NFL. In 1983, thirty years after he passed on, the medals were reinstated, (Despite the previous objections of those such as his former teammate and IOC President Avery Brundage) but the fact we're still discussing stripping an athlete of the medal he's won for non-sports related reasons a century after the fact shows there's still a massive hypocrisy involved in the structure and rulings of this so-called amateur event.
It's a sports competition. Let the fair play on the field decide who gets to keep their medals.(And for crying out loud, can I not be made to look at so much as the shadow of a synchronized swimmer or rhythm gymnast for the next four years? Just asking.)
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